What’s at stake: “if the United
States is to come to terms with its involvement in institutionalized state
torture, there must be a full and official accounting of what has been done,
and those responsible at the highest levels must be held accountable.” Rebecca Gordon

OMNI NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL DAYS PROJECT:

JUNE IS UN TORTURE AWARENESS MONTH

JUNE 26 IS UN INTERNATIONAL DAY IN SUPPORT OF
VICTIMS OF TORTURE

JULY 17 IS UN INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE DAY,
INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT (ICC)

Veterans For Peace believes all torture, including
waterboarding, is a human rights violation and constitutes a war crime. We will
not defeat terrorism by adopting terrorist tactics. We will not achieve peace
by practicing revenge. We will not
preserve our precious democracy by abandoning our commitment to human rights.
It is appalling that the efficacy of torture is now part of the American
conversation. It dehumanizes us when we resort to such baseness. This is not
what millions of U.S. military veterans fought for. We should reject such
simplistic and vengeful suggestions on the campaign trail. Instead of doubling
down on a shameful era, Americans should be turning the page to a new era of
peace at home and peace abroad. The tortured logic of waterboarding is not the
way to get there. <Full Statement>

Fighting Racism and
Torture from Ferguson to Guantánamo

Witness
Against Torture members in the U.S. Capitol shortly before being arrested by
Capitol Police on January 12, 2015. (Photo: WNV/Justin Norman)

On
January 12, in the cramped entrance of D.C. Metro Police headquarters, Witness Against Torture addressed a
phalanx of officers in song: “We remember all the people / The police killed /
We can feel their spirits / They’re with us still.” The song was written for
the occasion by Luke Nephew, anti-torture stalwart and poet for movements from
climate justice to Black Lives Matter. (Nephew’s “I
Can’t Breathe” has become an anthem for the latter.) The
anti-torture group had gathered in Washington to mark the 13th “anniversary” of
the opening of the detention camp at Guantánamo in January 2002. Here
protesting domestic racism at a D.C. jail, Witness Against Torture, or WAT,
broke new ground for itself.

Earlier
in the day, WAT members werearrestedat
the U.S. Capitol. Some interrupted Senate proceedings to call for the
prosecution of those authorizing or committing torture, as detailed in the
Senate’s own report on CIA interrogations. Others were cuffed in the visitors
center holding banners reading “We Demand Accountability for Torture and Police
Murder!”

Woven
between the two actions was the demonstration by the Hands Up Coalition DC at the Department of Justice, attended in
force by anti-torture activists. In driving rain, the mother of Emmanuel
Okutuga, killed by police in nearby Silver Spring, Md., addressed the crowd
through sobs.

WAT
conceived its suite of actions under the slogan “From Ferguson to Guantánamo: White Silence Equals State Violence.”The goal was to link mass incarceration
at home and indefinite detention overseas, impunity for police murder and for
CIA torture as dual dimensions of systems of state violence rooted
substantially in racism.

Behind the efforts at this
synthesis lay challenges commonly confronting today’s activists: to
analytically connect diverse oppressions; to build alliances based on their
interconnection; and, for majority white groups like WAT, to support with
appropriate deference and recognition of structural privilege movements led by
people of color. The particular, sometimes halting journey of anti-Guantánamo
activists toward new solidarities may be instructive for others contending with
these challenges. MORE http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/01/18/fighting-racism-and-torture-ferguson-guantanamo

Jeremy
Varon is an organizer with Witness Against Torture and a Professor of History
at The New School.

The CIA "disappeared" more than 100 men and tortured
dozens from 2002 to 2008, using horrific tactics like forced rectal feeding
and waterboarding.

A recent Senate report provides new evidence of these crimes, but no one
has been held accountable. In fact, the U.S. Justice Department --
responsible for prosecuting crimes -- is apparently refusing to even read
the report, keeping it locked away in a sealed envelope.

Majid Khan was at the mercy of CIA interrogators for 1,200 days -- at least.
During that time, he was stripped. He was forced into ice water baths. He was
"hung up" for a day in a sleep deprivation position. He was denied
solid food for seven days.

After about a year, Majid Khan went on hunger strike to protest the treatment
he was receiving. The CIA responded with "involuntary rectal feeding and
rectal hydration." Majid's lunch tray, consisting of hummus, pasta with
sauce, nuts, and raisins, was "pureed" and "rectally
infused." This happened repeatedly. Eventually, Majid Khan attempted to
cut his wrists.

I'm interested in the power of words. Terms like "enhanced
interrogation" or "rectal feeding" are clever disguises for
the true term we should be using to describe the CIA's treatment of Majid and
more than 100 others: Torture.

[With
Cheney, Bush, and Rumsfeld, Rice led the Bush Administration into the war
crimes of torture. Yet she was paid
$170,000 for one lecture by the University of Arkansas Fayetteville. They can still be prosecuted, and must be
if we are ever have a just and humane justice system.]

Apr 23, 2009 - Condoleezza Rice, President George W.
Bush's Secretary of State, personally approved a CIA request to use
"waterboarding" and other harsh interrogation techniques. ...
She verbally agreed to allow the methods to be used on Abu Zubaydah, an
al-Qaeda suspect, in July 2002, a Senate ...